Skinnydipping Cozumel - A Poem by Patty Mooney

Night has chased off the iguanas and invites me
into the water on the lee side.
The sea is even sultrier than the air
and wanting nothing between me and the stars
I strip and enter. It's like diving
between succulent thighs, I ride
the surge to ecstasy, it carries me,
a swift caress. The moon
reaches for me, I am drenched
in warmth and spangled light.
My underwater goggles paint lucid scenes
of darting clown fish, a shoal of angelfish
like a sheet of plasticene and fins,
urchins hiding, thorn cushions in mottled crevices.
It's all so delicious until the flick
of jellyfish on skin, then again, and again.
My fins crank, I spin away
from this drama of pain, I shall leave
mermaiding to the mermaids.